The present invention relates to apparatus for automatically feeding articles into an article processing machine, and more particularly, to apparatus for continuously correcting the positions of randomly spaced articles and transferring the articles with proper timing into the receiving conveyor of a horizontal wrapping machine.
Horizontal wrapping machines commonly use conveyors to feed a series of longitudinally spaced articles to a wrapping portion where one or more of the articles are placed into each wrapped package. Such wrapping machines conventionally are used with a feeder which receives articles from a supply conveyor and separates these articles into a predetermined spaced and timed relating to the wrapping machine receiver conveyor. The feeder usually includes an article accumulation conveyor which operates at a high speed so that a back log of articles from the supply conveyor are accumulated at the feeding station. Such a feeder may not work satisfactorily with delicate articles which may be damaged due to excessive pressure between the abutted articles.
A computer controlled light contact feeder employing a pair of servo driven flat belt conveyors has been disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 06/929,457 by the inventors of the present invention. This prior art two belt feeder takes randomly spaced articles and places them in lightly abutted contact before spacing and timing them for transfer into a receiving conveyor of a wrapping machine. This two belt feeder is relatively low in cost and can feed individual articles provided they have relatively uniform friction characteristics at rates ranging up to 300 articles per minute. This rate is reduced if the articles have a highly variable friction characteristic. This two belt feeder is also capable of grouping articles into pairs by intermittant metering. This pairing feature is achieved only at lower feeding rates because of acceleration limitations associated with intermittant metering.
There are many applications where it is desirable to employ a flat belt type of light contact feeder for accurate feeding of single articles and/or paired articles at higher rates than can be achieved with the previously disclosed low cost light contact feeder employing two flat belts.